Pune Mirror: Pune: Saturday, August 29, 2015.
All commercial transport vehicles, including buses and trucks, will participate in a nationwide indefinite strike from October 1 this year, protesting the fact that there has been no response from the central government regarding the toll policy. The decision was taken at a joint meeting of all transporters on Friday, claiming that they could no longer sustain the financial burden of increasing toll charges.
All India Motor Transport Congress (AIMTC), an apex body of transporters — both cargo and passenger — had sent a memorandum on this to the Ministry of Road Transport, Highways and Shipping last month.
"To build the momentum, we had met senior ministry officials. On August 18, an emergency meeting of the managing committee was called and the decision taken to wait for the government's response till August 25. If it did not come, we would roll out our plan of action to halt transportation operations," said Baba Shinde, a committee member.
Under the Right to Information Act (RTI), it was found that toll rates have increased by 60 per cent, without any increase in road user-friendly policies. Every year, the toll rate is increased by 18 per cent, which has no justification, said agitators.
AIMTC president Bhim Wadhwa said, "There is no uniform toll policy and individual agreements are entered into for each toll road are Build Operate Transfer (BOT) basis . When the National Highways Rules of 1997 were in force, there were more public-funded projects than private investment projects. The new 2008 Act seems to have been designed to encourage BOTbased projects, empowering private parties to determine toll at their own rates and categories."
Shinde added, "All transport vehicles, including private buses, trucks and other heavy vehicles, will go off the road. We have tried to discuss the issue and solve it, but received no response."
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